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Thursday, March 7, 2013

There can only be one word to
describe the scene of an underground fight night: dank. When some Delta Chi
brothers and I went down to watch one of own, Ben Bloch, enter the ring against
a mysterious man-mammoth akin to a certain action-star, we found a place that
was dirty, dark, and sketchier than just about anything you will ever find. The
place was filled wall-to-wall, with more people shouting and screaming at their
fighters than had to be allowed in the facility. It was insane, but man, it was
awesome. We were treated to thirteen fights tonight—count ‘em!—and each one
offered its own unique story. Whether it was a Northwestern girl intimidating
the dickens out of me, other spectators asking me for drugs, or the always
quality antics of my buddy Ben, the night offered plenty of quality blog
material. Dazz went thirteen rounds of boxing, and for the whole two hours, he
gave you minute-by-minute coverage. Ring the bell, it is time to commence with
one of the most unique running diaries we have ever done.

6:10—Fight #1

Two
skinny white kids start going at it. This is what you pay to see right here. We
have some kid in above-the-knee shorts with fire going up the sides and another
kid with easily the deepest chin cleft I have ever seen on a human being. Well
this is just exceptional.

Fire-shorts is just receiving an
absolute whipping right now. This is a classic Rocky tactic. Take the beating
early on, wear your opponent out, and then come in for the kill later.

6:12—The first round ends.
The ring has a little music going in between rounds, and it sounds like we have
some classic folk happening right now. Totally fits the underground,
sketchy-as-all-hell vibe, right? Not even folk rock. This is pre-bluegrass stuff.
Unbelievable.

As the next round begins, my
friend Evan yells for Fire-shorts to “Use the star power!” This is what we
need. In a crowded room full of bloodthirsty, eager-for-violence people, we
should have a dorky white guy yelling out video game references. It may have
inspired little Fire-shorts though—he kept knocking out Boy Chin Wonder’s
mouthpiece. He had to put it back in probably seven times after it had fallen
on the nice spongy sweat-mat. Man, this place is really sweeping the board here
in terms of the health code.

6:19--The Boy Chin Wonder wins
the fight by unanimous decision. No one roots for the little guy these days.
What a shame, this was some classic schoolyard stuff, and we have a dozen of
these left!

6:20—Fight #2

We have
two girls fighting now, and no, there will be no cat-fight jokes here, thank
you very much. What I will say, however, is that I kept waiting for some
overprotective father in the audience to jump up, hurdle the ropes, and tackle
the other fighter. Or at least cuss someone out.

6:23—We have some
extracurriculars after the round, the two gals took a couple of extra swings
there! What fun. Let me sort of paint a picture here: we have a slimmer gal in
the blue corner going up against a gal who . . . who needed to be in another
weight class, I should say. She had a real haymaker though—it was intimidating
as hell.

After the second round the two
coaches brought out the stools and everything again, and I have to say that I
had a brief flash of Million Dollar Baby. I think that is one of those few flicks
where you can voice it aloud or mention it in passing, and no matter the
context or the company, everyone who hears it will squirm. You hear that little
crack when she—see, there you go. Told you.

6:27—The haymaker gal wins
out of a split decision. We need a knockout here.

6:28—Fight #3

Alright
so this time around we have a wiry, really athletic dude (but not like the
school bully Boy Chin Wonder from the first fight, you respected this one)
against who appears to be the leading promoter for every tattoo artist in the
Chicagoland area. We begin a sports-tattoo talk.

The
athletic guy opens the round with a straight-up
shrug. Awesome. And man, I am loving this hyperlink thing.

6:33—We decide that boxing
needs finishing moves. Like a charge-it-up
fire-punch. I notice the need for this when tattooed guy is backed up against
the ropes and I literally yell aloud “Finish him!” to his opponent. I am a
monster, guys.

When the ref announces the
winner (tattoo guy) the crowd boos wildly. Then someone yelled “Kill the ref!”
and things became real serious real quick. My buddy Ben says, “The crowd’s not
a huge fan of that one.” Have we had enough hyperlink-celebrity cameos? Louis says nope, he
wants in one this one.

6:38—Fight #4

We had
a technical knockout! Essentially one guy was punched so hard in the face that
the judge deemed him, “too bloody to continue.” I fist-pumped a little. Sorry.

6:44—Fight #5

There’s
another women’s fight! And—wait for it—one of them is a homegrown Northwestern
Wildcat! Yeah!

Some guy in the back yells,
“Work the body!” which is definitely inappropriate in this context, but somehow
totally appropriate in this context. Weird.

6:51—Catgirl wins! Go cats
indeed! She won on unanimous decision, but her final blow was an absolute
monster. I yelled “Fatality!” right after it landed. I need to take a break
from this.

6:53—Fight #6

We have
another Wildcat in this one! Small problem though, instead of a fairly
well-matched opponent that he can overcome with a combination of scrappiness,
tenacity, and good looks (what?), this guy is up against some dude with a last
name that sounded suspiciously like Alphadiablo. Let me just type that again so
it will repeat in your head for emphasis. Ready? Here it is: Alphadiablo.

The whole room is dead silent.
It was like everyone was just waiting for something horrible to happen. All you
could hear for a solid minute and a half was the Wildcat and Alphadiablo just
punching the hell out of each other. No one could look away.

6:57—After the round they
played Demi Lovato and ruined it. I was a little peeved. Luckily, it opened the
latter rounds for more videogame jokes, this time more along the lines of us
yelling “Press B!” (at the Wildcat, not Alphadiablo, because he would probably
cut us) and talking Smash Bros. We are real fans.

6:59—The fight ends in a
draw. Here is what the judge said, verbatim, “Thought it would be the winner of
the third round, but neither of them wanted to win.”

This
fight is a classic Evanston kid against some kid who looks like he has that
classic fought-his-way-to-the-top-with-an-older-trainer-and-subpar-facilities-and-a-cool-theme-song-by-Survivor
backstory. But honestly I lost my focus a little bit on this one because the
Wildcat girl appeared right behind our group, and I was intimidated as all
hell. It is really just a lot of confusion right now on that front.

7:04—As the violence ensues
and the Evanston kid begins to enter Hulk mode, we have an idea. So all of
these fighters wear padded helmets, right? What if they customized them like
goalies do in hockey do? That would be damn cool—all these guys have sweet
nicknames to play off of anyway. Imagine Alphadiablo’s mask. Like Darth Maul
meets the New Jersey Devils meets boxing . . . this cannot lose.

7:09—After the fight, they
have a small delay because someone has to come into the ring and mop up the
blood from everyone’s broken faces. Boxing also needs those little
sweat-mopping kids that basketball has. Come on, offer a kid five bucks to
clean some blood from a boxing ring and he will do it ten times out of ten.

7:12—Fight #8

To put
it bluntly, this fight pitted some curly-headed schmuck against Ray Lewis. Keep
that image in your head. To his credit, Curly Top really came out swinging.

7:17—There are lots of
Italian guys here; I wonder if they have bets on these fights. Probably. I
mean, at this point, I was honestly expecting someone to step into the ring,
shoot some steroids into their arms, and put the gloves on. This thing has
entered the Tyson Zone—google it.

7:19—Curly Top stuns Ray
Lewis and eliminates the validity of fifteen stereotypes. There was much
rejoicing.

7:23—Fight #9

Material
is wearing thin here as we pit some frat guy against a dude named Doug. The frat
dude is wearing a tank that just says, “RAGE” on the front. We start going into
the best shirts to wear in a boxing match. The top spot went to a Watchmen tee
with the bloody smiley face, and the number two spot went to those pug
t-shirts. If you are about to go down, you might as well look like you saw it
coming.

7:26—Doug is not doing so
well; he was really banged around early. It sounds contradictory given the
seemingly casual tone I have put on this event, but when you are watching
boxing live and you see some new guy just absolutely being dominated, you
really want to step in and help. It is pretty sad. I liked Doug. Seemed like a
good kid. Sucked at boxing, but hey, he kept his chin up.

He lost, in case that was
unclear.

7:30—Fight #10

For
many people, this was the marquee event of the night. It looked like one guy
had his entire extended family come all the way up from Rogers Park or
somewhere, and they were howling and barking like mad the entire time. This was
the purest boxing match we probably saw all night, so much so that there’s a
solid ten-minute gap in my notes from me just standing there watching these
guys beat the doo out of one another. The crowd became so rabid and so loud
that the fight simply demanded you attention. It was the perfect example of why
boxing is a million times better live than on television. People go absolutely
nuts over these things—each fighter goes from a total stranger to a personal
investment in seconds. Crazy. I do not even remember who won.

7:40—Fight #11

Another Wildcat! This guy is
named Adrian, and he is thrown up against some total Pilsbury Dough Boy who
looks like he outweighs him by at least 40 pounds. Adrian looks scrappy though,
so he earns my instant respect.

7:45—As the fight progresses,
Adrian slowly evolves from a tactical, methodical boxer into what is
essentially a cornered animal. This is something else you do not really see on
television either. When these guys feel the fatigue set in, they literally
start running on pure adrenaline, whether that comes from a mantra or the crowd
or the threat of being flattened by a Marshmallow Man like Adrian here. It was
insane. Both of them just went primal on each other. The crowd was going nuts,
it was like something totally illegal was about to happen and we all knew it.

7:48—After round three, the
judge steps in to announce the decision . . . draw! Man, sack up. Seriously,
you just had two guys leave it all out there, both of whom had the crowd in an
absolute hurricane of action-induced craziness, and you do not declare a
winner? Grow a pair and take a side. Would there have been a riot either way?
Yeah, absolutely, but that is better than creating an outcome that is literally
meaningless. Unreal.

New rule right now: no freaking
draws in boxing. You should not be allowed to pit two guys against each other
in a straight-up fight and have some namby-pamby tie come out of it. No boxer
enters the ring and takes all that damage for nothing. Either you earn a win or
you take a hard-fought loss. Sheesh.

7:51—Fight #12

I
missed the larger portion of this fight because as our group moved to gain a
better perspective for our friend’s
match, some dude in baggy pants, a chain, and an oversized zip-up hollered at
me, “Hey yo One Direction, I know you got the weed. Where’s it at?” I remember
I laughed it off and kept walking. In retrospect, it would have blown his
freaking mind if at that moment I had reached down into my sock, pulled out a
bag of pot, flipped it to him, and kept walking. He looks down at the bag, and
on the outside is written in Sharpie: “This one’s on the house” plus my phone
number.

I am a lot cooler online than in
real life, guys.

7:58—Fight #13

Finally,
our main event. Fellow Delta Chi member Ben Bloch going up against a father.
That is right, this guy had his little son and little daughter sitting in the
front row, with their little dangling feet hanging over their chairs, about to
see daddy punch a guy. This is what we want our kids to learn, as early as
possible. Yes.

8:03—The father looks like a
somewhat skinner Vin Diesel, but still the XXX and Chronicles of Riddick
version of Vin (with any luck, that is the only time anyone ever will mention
any sort of XXX Vin Diesel, but we do not have to go there, so we will not). He
won the match over our Bear Jew friend, unfortunately, but I like to think that
this was some sort of situation where he was doing this fight to save the farm
or something. Vin Diesel would like that.

One thing to take
away from an underground fight night: everyone should go. Few things are more
fun to watch live than boxing—the crowd is crazy into it, the action never
stops, and even if you come in with a neutral allegiance, you find yourself
taking sides for every bout. It is an absolute blast to go, if at time
life-threatening, terrifying, and borderline criminal. Dazz will be back.